Danwei Picks is a daily digest of the “From the Web” links found on the Danwei homepage. A feed for the links as they are posted throughout the day is available at Feedsky (in China) or Feedburner (outside China).
Infiltrating the underground (and other seldom-seen Beijing destinations): As part of his research for a new Beijing by Foot guide, Eric Abrahamsen is keeping a blog of his experiences in some of the city’s less-traveled spots. In this post, he visits the tunnels under Nanluogu Xiang:
The entrances to the tunnels (there are many) are locked, except for the tourist section east of Qianmen, and where the tunnels are still of use to certain personages…
I and an anonymous band of doughty explorers descended into the murky, flooded depths, to bring back these stunning images of the netherworld. Sadly all the tunnels leading off into the great unmonitored unknown were bricked up or choked with rubble (including the one that made a beeline to Zhongnanhai), but the itch was mostly scratched.
Security guards to get regulated: Xinhua reports that the State Council is preparing regulations to reign in bad behavior on the part of security guards. What sort of regulations?
The draft forbids guards to do the followings: restrict personal freedom of any individual and make body search, insult, assault, battery or induce others to commit battery, withhold individual’s property or identification, interfere official performance.
It also bans guards to use violence or threaten to use violence to importune for payment, infringe personal privacy or leak out secrecy and other illegalities.
In a blog post, journalist Huang Yilong welcomes the idea of kinder, gentler security guards, but finds the regulations redundant:
If this regulation goes into effect, if the Chinese people no longer have their personal liberty restricted by security guards, or are subject to search and seizure at their hands, then this is indeed good news.
However, if instead of security guards carrying out the above acts, it is mayors and village heads, or police and urban enforcement, or even thieves and burglars who carry them out, must we then enact separate Service Management Regulations for mayors and village heads, police and urban enforcement, and thieves and burglars in order to guarantee that our personal and property rights are fully protected?
Then what use is the grand Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, which guarantees citizens’ personal and property rights? Is it there just so we can gaze at it in admiration?
China to open POW archives to USA: ABC news reports that China is expected to open some of its archives to investigators from the US who are looking into the 8,100 Americans listed as "missing in action" during the Korean war:
A small U.S. delegation is currently in China, anticipating that a final agreement can be reached by week’s end.
"We just hope that we can find something out of these records that they have. We believe that these records will help us … and hopefully, it will help us unlock clues as to the fate of our missing," said Capt. Mary Olsen, a spokesperson for the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO).
Once an agreement is signed later this week, U.S. officials hope a timetable can be reached soon for American investigators to begin researching the Chinese files, which DPMO has been seeking access to for years.
Peking Opera not compulsory for schoolchildren after all: Remember the hue and cry last June when China’s educational authorities rolled out a new physical fitness program that included the waltz and other forms of dirty dancing? Later, it turned out that dancing wasn’t compulsory, but the damage had already been done.
It’s happened again: a few days ago, Peking Opera was supposed to be the latest mandatory cultural enrichment activity, but public complaints that teachers aren’t qualified and most of the selections are "model operas" from the 70s have forced the authorities to spin the issue. From Xinhua:
"The opera classes are by no means a nationwide compulsory class, but pilot programs implemented in certain schools from March to July next year," said ministry spokesman Wang Xuming at a press conference on Monday.
"The Peking Opera class is a meaningful move to uphold China’s national spirit and cultivate student patriotism", said Jiang Peimin, director of the Ministry’s Basic Education Department.